


Avery

by IWannaDoBadThingsWithYou237



Series: Like A Little Recon Baby [1]
Category: Generation Kill
Genre: Adoption, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Kid Fic, Mentions of PTSD, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-28
Updated: 2015-03-28
Packaged: 2018-03-20 02:49:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3633897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IWannaDoBadThingsWithYou237/pseuds/IWannaDoBadThingsWithYou237
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Brad comes home from Afghanistan with the Royal Marines and is horrified to have a baby waiting for him. His decision about what to do will later rip him apart and haunt him for the rest of his life. </p>
<p>“Blue eyes-the same blue that he has, that nobody in his family has peer at him from under a tuft of blonde hair, they look interested like his son is amused about Brad’s internal freak out. “You know I can’t keep you” he says finally but the baby-Avery-has taken interest in the edge of his baby blanket and Brad suddenly feel like crying."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Avery

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, So this is my first story on AO3. 
> 
> I don't know much about the adoption process so i'm pretty much guessing, I'm kinda focusing on Brad's emotion and even then i'm not sure if it turned out right. 
> 
> Spelling and Grammar are really not my strong point so I'll apologise now if it anything is wrong.

Brad comes back from his second tour of Iraq with the Royal Marines tired, filthy and with more nightmares than he will ever admit. 

There was something different about the second tour, something different about the people he was serving with. Ray, Walt, Poke and Tromley were to the best of his knowledge still serving overseas and Nate-well Nate had fallen of the face of the Earth spectacularly. 

The rest of them he had kept in touch with. He hadn’t really felt the urge to, he hadn’t had the time nor the patience nor the emotion to have a conversation with anyone who didn’t understand what it was like to have this itch under their skin to do something. 

When he had eventually staggered into his apartment he strips himself down, turns on the shower and is more than happy to let the hot water drown him away.

Once he was out he sat down at the table reading through his bills, drinking a beer and wondering when this had become his life, there was a knock at the door.   
And when he opened it, it was to see a flash of blonde disappearing down the flight of stairs and a baby at his feet. 

He had only been stateside about three hours and already his life was falling apart. 

The baby was chewing on the edge of the blue blanket it was wrapped in, eyes wide as it looked up at Brad. A single envelope was tucked into the side of the blanket his name in cursive ink. Gently (because he might be a badass Marine but even he wasn’t going to leave a baby outside an apartment) he grabbed the top of the car seat it had been left in and placed the baby (he assumed a boy) onto the top of the table reaching for the envelope. 

 

Dear Brad, 

I don’t know if you remember me but if you don’t I’ll remind you, I’m the blonde girl at the bar nine months before you left to join the Royal Marine’s that drank Rum and Coke and gave you a good time. In case you’ve forgotten it’s been nearly eighteen months since you’ve last seen me and you don’t want to know how I found out you were coming back today. 

This is Avery Montgomery-your son. And now your responsibility. Don’t make me out to be heartless, this is one of the hardest decisions I have ever had to make but as of now this kid is yours. I have adoption papers included that give up my rights to you and if you decide to put him up for adoption that’s your right. If you want a DNA test then that’s ok as well but you’d have to be blind to not see he’s yours. 

Yours Sincerely. 

Angela (or otherwise known as the Girl in the Bar) 

 

Brad blinked several times, in two missions, bootcamp, nearly six years in the Marine Corps and this was what left him speechless. 

Gently he lifted the baby (Avery) out of the car seat, pulling him face to face. The baby had dark blue eyes, the same blue that he had, the same blue that nobody in his family had but him and a tuft of blonde hair, he was wearing a dark blue onesie with strips and was watching him with a vague interest. 

“Fuck” he said finally and the baby giggled slightly waving his hands around. Brad paused before placing the baby on his back on the table watching him with interest, “I can’t keep you, you know” he said breathing heavily “I can’t keep you” 

With shaking hands he reached into the envelope to find the adoption papers. It should be quick and easy, he could drop the kid of at the nearest social services and then everything could go back to normal. 

The baby blinked back at him his feet kicking catching his dog-tags on his little socked feet. Brad breathed heavily again trying to control his nausea. “Ok kid” he said with a tone that he hoped conveyed control “It’s” he checked the clock “It’s now eight o’clock at night, so what were gonna do is sit on my couch until tomorrow morning and then I’m gonna go and drop you off.”

Still holding the thing like it was a bomb that he didn’t know how to deactivate he gingerly sat down on the couch letting the baby drop into his lap. 

“Ok” he said more to himself “Ok, this is good…Avery…this is good” 

Avery’s hand found his playing with his big finger and Brad closed his eyes breathing out and feeling strangely like crying. 

It took him a while for him to figure out that that was what he was actually doing.

 

There was something waking him up, a piercing cry that was making it more and more difficult to continue clinging to the idea of a good night’s sleep in he didn’t know how many nights he had craved for. It was the sound of crying and he jerked awake with a start. 

The baby had ended up lying on his chest, and was now sat up crying loudly. “Ok” he muttered sitting up letting the baby rest on his hip and trying to rid his thoughts of smoke and gunfire and sand digging into every crevice of his body and the shouts of his men and the other Royal Marines as they were continually assaulted by enemy fire. 

“Ok” he reaches into the side of the bag where there is (thankfully) a bottle (and why the hell hadn’t he noticed that before?). “Food Avery” he said waving the bottle and opening the microwave and feeling utterly ridiculous, “Yummy food” 

Gently he thumbed Avery’s crying mouth open letting the lukewarm bottle slid in watching him guzzle down the milk instantly. 

“I can’t do this” he said carefully sitting down lifting the bottle, “You need to be with somebody who can do this” he paused closing his eyes “I was adopted you know”. Brad stared as the baby blinked at him, “I was adopted by a nice family like you will be and I promise you your gonna look back and realise that I made the right decision” he gently puts the bottle down to hug Avery closer, he thinks of Iraq, he thinks of Recon and then he think of what keeping this baby will mean. 

Brad can feel tears building again and he swallows them down because God, Damn it he isn’t going to start crying now, he is a Reconnaissance, Marine he isn’t going to break down over this. He’s trained to never break down. 

“I can’t be the father you need you know” he says carefully as the baby’s eyes droop shut. “You need someone whose gonna be there for you, whose gonna hold you when you get scared and teach you how to fix up a car and tell you about girls and boys if that’s the way you wanna go, I have more nightmares in a month than I think you will ever have in your childhood and without sounding like a crossover between a woman and Ray Person-and you should be grateful you never get to meet him that the truth” 

Even to him it sounds weak and pathetic. 

Brad places him down gently in the car seat covering him with the blanket watching as his fingers played with the edges. 

It was with shaking hands that he picked up the papers.

“I can’t do this” he muttered under his breath feeling the panic and vomit rising again. 

“I can’t do this” 

 

It was dawn before he knew it and Brad scooped up Avery with a tightly wadded throat. Once this was over he could go back to sleeping in his own bed, he could get himself drunk as much as he wanted and he could finally get his shit together and make himself combat aware for the next time he was sent over. None of the above could be done with this baby constantly needing its father. 

“I’m sorry” Brad said finally letting Avery clasp one of his fingers, the social worker handling whatever the hell this was had kindly agreed to give them a moment ‘Just in case you change your mind’. “I suppose at the end of the day i’m selfish” he shrugged. 

“Some people aren’t parent material” 

When it’s time to hand the baby over Brad allows himself one moment to think about how this could work, he allows himself to think about coming home to something other than an empty apartment, he thinks about being someone other than Gunnery Sargent Brad Colbert of the United States Marine Corps, he allows himself to imagine being somebody’s parent. 

It’s not a bad picture. 

It just can’t happen now. 

“Forgive me” he whispers into Avery’s tiny ear and the baby gurgles in his ears. “Forgive me” he keeps telling himself it’s for the best and it’s the only thing that makes him give away his own child, the same way his biological parents gave him up. 

Brad swallows again thinking that the events of the past twenty-four hours have told him he could at some point be a parent if not just now and it’s the only reason he is able to walk away. 

People like him…people as damaged as him…

When he leaves his arms ache for a long time.

**Author's Note:**

> I intend to make this a series with all the other characters and the next two all have Brad as one of the main characters, I hope to have the next instalment posted as soon as I am able to. 
> 
> Please leave a comment and tell me what you think


End file.
